Tips for Women (By Women) on How to Stay Safe On and Offline

Today, we celebrate International Women’s Dayand women around the world who are breaking down barriers while tackling the work to be done. We, the women of Dashlane, got together to discuss many important issues, including one we’re uniquely passionate about–security.

As women, we are acutely aware of unique cyber threats targeting women, from nonconsensual access to online accounts to online harassment and cyberstalking. For International Women’s Day, we decided to do our bit to spread awareness on how other women can increase their online protection from such threats. Here are the tips and tools we use and recommend to protect you on and offline.

Use stronger passwords: The key to keeping all of your online accounts secure is using strong, unique passwords on all of your accounts, but generating strong passwords can be tricky. We highly recommending using Dashlane’s Password Generator to help you create strong passwords for each of your online accounts, but we also have this helpful guide tips to help you generate (and remember!) strong passwords yourself.

Use a Password Manager: Even if you use unique passwords for all of your accounts, keeping track of hundreds of different passwords can be a hassle. Password managers, like Dashlane, solve this problem by managing, organizing, and encrypting all of your passwords and helping you keep tabs on the strength of those passwords, too! They also protect you from common cyber attacks, like phishing and brute-force password attacks.

Use Two-Factor Authentication: Enabling two-factor authentication (2FA) on all of your apps and online accounts is an easy way to add an extra layer of protection over your online accounts. Instead of relying on two pieces of information–like your username and password–to authenticate you, 2FA requires adding an additional element for validation, like your fingerprint, a PIN number, a security question, or a hardware device. We recommend using an authenticator app, like Authy or Google Authenticator, or using a security token like aYubiKey from our friends at Yubico. To learn more about 2FA, check out this beginner’s guide on how to use 2FA.

Turn your phone into your bodyguard: If you’ve even felt afraid to walk around alone at night or somewhere unfamiliar, we highly recommend an app called SafeTrek. It’s a mobile app that will call the police and send them to your exact location in the event of an emergency. You could also try apps likeGuardly, Circle of 6,MyForce, Panic Guard or other panic button apps.

Read our guide with additional tips: Last year, we published a comprehensive guide with 9 tips to keep every woman’s digital identity safe and private all year long. This covers everything from how to protect your online accounts to keeping your devices secure to preventing phishing attacks. Check it out here, and share it with your friends, family members, and colleagues!

Don’t be afraid to call for help: If you are a woman experiencing domestic violence, here’s who you should contact to seek help:

If you are currently being harassed or doxxed online and need a lawyer, please contact CA Goldberg Law. Attorney Carrie Goldberg is a pioneer in the field of sexual privacy, using the law to defend victims of hacking, leaking, and other online assaults.

We’d love to hear from you! If you have any tips you’d like to share with other women, leave them in the comments below.